The Shoebox
by CatatonicVanity
Summary: Mello didn't die. But he should have.


Title: The Shoebox

Summary: Mello didn't die. But he should have. (Slightly AU in that Matt died, Mello didn't.)

Rating: T for drug mentions, alcohol use and slight sexual references.

Author's Note: Just a drabble. Sort of depressing. Needed to get back in the swing of writing.

...

Mello was drunk. Always drunk, no surprise.

That day was playing in his head on a constant, horrifying loop. Matt's car (that he cherished so) and the body; so much blood.

Death. He lived and walked it, shrouded himself in its inky cloak but it never quite struck him until it was bestowed upon the one he loved. No, death was natural and expected (until it came in the form of thirteen bullets).

Mello didn't die. (He should have.)

That stupid woman spelled his name wrong. He should have known she would, he should have seen it coming. After all, before Wammy's people spelled his strange name wrong all the time.

He blindly pours liquor in a glass and raises it to his lips. Scotch, maybe? No, vodka. (Even better.) He looks down at the clear liquid in the glass. It's shaking; no, he's shaking. (Why is his throat constricted?) The sob rips through before he can stop it and he suddenly feels the tears on his face. He sinks to the floor, crying. Always crying, no surprise.

He crawls to the bathroom and empties his stomach before looking in the mirror. He doesn't like what he sees; no one would. (Matt did.) A story, he called it.

Mello stumbles out of the bathroom. The place reeks of alcohol. (Disgusting.) He didn't want to turn to liquor; he considered drugs. Then he remembered finding Matt on the floor of the mafia base, convulsing and hallucinating. (Cocaine addiction.)

It was hell breaking him of it. (It hurt to see him cry.) Matt suffered weeks of withdrawals, begging for a fix. (Or begging for death.) He made Mello promise not to do drugs, never. A blind agreement.

No, he won't stoop to that. The coward's way out. (Hypocrite.)

So he stumbles to the bedroom to get the next best thing. He falls on the bed that still smells of the cigarette smoke. Mello scowls; he hated it when Matt smoked inside. (But he didn't want to let Matt go after sex.) But it's all Matt's scent and he inhales deeply, fresh tears springing up.

(It's time to pack up his things.) He peels himself off the bed with difficulty and collapses in front of the closet. Slowly, he digs through piles of games and systems that he can't name and feels a pang of regret in his chest. He should know all of this. (He should have taken the time to know.)

At the bottom of the closet, he finds boxes of computer equipment. Enough for ten people; never enough for Matt. And at the very bottom, tucked in a corner, he finds… a shoebox? (The only shoes he owned were his boots.) He pulls it out and opens it.

The first thing he finds is a blue ribbon. He was first in the mandatory poetry contest at Wammy's. (Matt was so proud.) After that he finds the note from when he left after L's death. When he left Matt. He finds letters from his parents that Matt never tampered with, only kept. He finds letters and notes written to Mello wishing him merry Christmas and happy birthday. He never sent them. Old Valentine's, each with a love confession starting when he was twelve.

Mello sobs over the box, looking at mementos from his life, all kept by Matt. And at the very bottom he finds a little envelope of photos. A little blonde boy sitting high up in a tree, eating a chocolate bar. A slightly older blonde, playing football with the other kids. (Matt never played.) All pictures of Mello when he was at Wammy's; when he donned himself in cotton instead of leather, when his face was still perfect and smooth; when the negativity around him wasn't that of death and decay, but of playful mischief.

He misses those days.

Matt took the pictures without Mello's knowledge and kept them without his permission. (He must have guarded them with his life.) A little piece of his broken childhood lies here in front of him and he can't stop crying and oh, God, he's gonna be sick again.

He plucks up the courage later to go back to the box. In the very bottom is another picture of Matt and Mello. Matt has an arm around Mello's neck and is holding him close, grinning at the camera. Mello has a grudging smile on his face, even though he seems put out. (He always liked the contact.) On the very back in slanted handwriting Matt wrote _I love you Mello. Forever._

And Mello parts his lips and speaks his first word since that day.

"Forever."

...

Kay. Was that hard to follow? Because I wrote it exactly as I thought it and I sort of like it, even if the format is kind of weird. For those of you who didn't follow, parentheses are Mello's thoughts as they happen in correspondence with the actions. Not the traditional format, but sue me.

So it's not great, but I needed to write, so review?


End file.
